1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to image processing apparatus, specifically, to an image processing apparatus for outputting image data of a scanned document as a file.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image processing apparatus for generating a file based on the image data of the scanned document, and storing the file in its storage device or transferring the file to a client PC, etc., connected thereto via a network conventionally exists. In recent years, security enhancement of information is desired, and an image processing apparatus that encrypts the file of the generated image data for the purpose of preserving confidentiality of the information has been invented as described in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2005-86582.
However, the file of the image data has a great amount of data and the calculation amount in the process of encrypting the file of the image data becomes large, whereby a great amount of processing load is imposed on a calculation processing device of the image forming apparatus. Thus, the processing ability of other functions of the image processing apparatus tends to decrease when executing the encryption process on the file of the image data.